The Oligarchy in the Room

This is one of those lessons you can’t unlearn.

I’ve been learning from YouTuber and wildly successful interest rate trader Gary Stevenson. He talks about how the super rich are syphoning all the money out of the industrialised world.

They’re not paying taxes back. Instead, they’re buying up all the remaining tangible property. Their invented money is sky-rocketing the price of houses and other assets out of the reach of the rest of us.

He noticed this and made millions betting on it for Citibank.

Maybe you’ve noticed it too?

Just now I heard the New Zealand government on the radio. They were talking about lowering taxes to “attract investment” into the country. This is one of those statements we all pretty much accept as common sense. Prominent journalists talk about “attracting billionaires here”. As if billionaires owed allegiance to any country anywhere. As if their heavenly presence is inherently positive.

We’re increasingly like doggie-paddling fisherman, chumming our waters to attract sharks, in the hope they’ll drop some fish.

It’s got me thinking about the trajectory we’re on. Trajectory is the right word, I feel. We fired ourselves up into the sky like a bullet from a gun with the explosive power of fossil fuels. Now we’re hurtling back down to Earth to explode in the mud.

In this age of Trump, we’re witnessing the decline of Western Civilisation in real time. This is just what people like me and Gary have been forecasting. So how far will the richest in nations like mine, the UK and the US be willing to go down the path to total annihilation?

Gary makes some good points on this. For example, even the level of equality we’ve got now is unusual. It correlates closely with the fossil fuel spike that has created a century or so of untold wealth for a few.

Ironically, in a sense, the meta-crisis is actually reducing inequality. It’s probably going to make most of us a lot more equal - just equally poor. Meanwhile, a vanishingly small number will remain super rich for decades, or even centuries to come. They did just that in centuries past, and they’re doing it now in many places around the world.

Check out all the studies on the startling resilience of intergenerational wealth. For example, consider how a remarkable number of the same wealthy families from antiquity remain at the top of the tree in the UK.

Take a glance at the top 10 private landowners.

Number one is Richard Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, 10th Duke of Buccleuch and 12th Duke of Queensberry, KT, KBE, CVO, DL, FSA, FRSE, FRSGS. How did he obtain his ludicrous wealth? He's the direct descendant of two of King Charles II’s illegitimate sons from two different mistresses.

Number three is the Trusts set up by someone rejoicing under the title of the Duke of Atholl.

Languishing in fourth place, is Hugh Grosvenor. He’s the 7th Duke of Westminster. He became the world’s richest person under 30 at the age of 25. He inherited £9 billion from his dad. It included large chunks of central London. His ancestor was knighted by James I in 1617. Hugh is sometimes hilariously described as a “businessman”. That's like describing someone allowed to ride a motorbike in a marathon as an athlete.

At six is the 17th Chief of Invercauld. Then there’s another Earl, followed by the King and another Earl trailing at nine.

Seven out of the 10 would not look out of place in the end credits of Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.

These people didn’t get titles by getting rich. They got rich by inheriting titles. Their wealth has accrued over centuries. It's not just that they were born with silver spoons in their mouths. It's like they were born into a giant silver spoon covering half of Hampshire.

You may think there's such a thing as social mobility. But you might be surprised at how much of it is still conducted in golden carriages, helicopters and armoured cars.

Another study in China found almost exactly the same pattern. The families who'd been warlords and barons were now, miraculously, heading up various organs of the Communist state.

So when we consider how far they might go, we might want to consider how far they’ve come. These families have cruised through hundreds of years of watching other people die of starvation and in wars on their behalf. Meanwhile, they can’t even spend the exponentially increasing passive incomes their wealth generates. That’s a pretty mean while.

Colonialism pushed the tide of destitute humanity out to foreign parts. Out in New Whereverland they or their representatives could slaughter and enslave people just like the old days back home.

That tide of tears is now roiling back in again. The traumatised inhabitants of an impoverished world are trying, understandably, to reach the piles of stolen treasure.

Interestingly, one of those colonies, South Africa, leaps to mind when I think of where this leads. Rampant violent crime, armed private security firms and electric-fenced communities for the rich. The poor left to fight and fend for themselves beyond. Mad Max, but some people have a pool and some polo ponies.

Don’t think this can’t happen to you. It probably already has happened to your family through most of its history. It is happening now all over the world.

It may come suddenly. A few missed payments on your mortgage when interest rates spike. A job lost to austerity cuts.

It may be more insidious. You cling on to the rising house prices. Reach retirement and realise the imaginary money won't pay for your old age. Sell your family home into a market that's still rocketing away from you. Hand over your last cash for a cabbage smelling motel room owned by a gigantic aged care corporation. Until Dr Death swishes in through the ranch slider…

And your descendants join the tenant class, forever.

There'll always be those trying to ride it all out under chandeliers. We think we’ll be among them. But they’ll dine richly on our misfortune, and we'll let them. They won't even need staff once the robots arrive.

I recently read Tim Winton’s book Juiced. It's childish sci-fi fantasy about hunting oil execs and the others deemed guilty. I’d guess the mass of ordinary humanity has been cherishing similar dreams forever. The hero's tales we'll tell around our bin fires.

The last time we came close was France, 1789. But nearly all the French nobility clung on to their wealth, even as Madame Guillotine shortened the lives of some.

You’ve probably seen them, on your screens. In the yachts when Formula 1 is in Monte Carlo, or the slopes of the Alps. Who cares about titles if you get to keep the wealth and power?

This all provides me with another use of the term sustainable. Another one that the sustainability professionals aren’t talking about. How much inequality can civilised industrial society sustain?

It would seem to be a lot. Until they've exhausted all their murderous options, and the barbarians are at their gates. Then the super wealthy will shower their wealth at our feet, like Christmas baubles in a home invasion.

But by then it will be way, way too late.